I wrote several paragraphs to explain this a couple days ago, and deleted it all because it was so long winded, you nailed it with a couple sentences.

Extort, like the orzhov, can be very black, very white and everything between. The comparison to lifelink is perfect.

As a brand new player jumping in during an Expert expansion, you come across an evergreen mechankc, such as hexproof. There is no reminder text on the card. Wat do?

You shouldn't have to read the CR due to random interactions and rules quirks, and I agree behind the basic premise that you shouldn't need to read the CR just to build a deck, but I think this is one instance where it is forgivable.

This creature would be an atrocious bit of color pie bleed:

Taxer Dude
1W
Creature - Advisor (or whatever)
Whenever you cast a spell, you may pay {W}. If you do, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain life equal to the amount lost.
2/2

Bleeder mechanics are often black or black/white, but monowhite almost never does them. Monowhite only does loss of life on very rare occasion. Other than Extort creatures there are only three monowhite CI cards that can make your opponent lose life: Suture Priest, Inquisitor Exarch, and Stern Judge. Two of those are deliberately pushing on the pie because loss of life was thrown into every color for NPH. Stern Judge is a riff on Karma.

But, you've given a mono-white creature - not an orzhov creature.

What's the difference? Flavor. Yours is generic, while those in Ravnical have the Orzhov feel/naming (or at least, are intended to -- while yours is intended to feel wrong.)

Perhaps I haven't been clear enough. I am speaking purely mechanically, because flavor has nothing to do with the color pie. Prodigal Sorcerer? Absolutely out of pie, amazing flavor. Sometimes they let flavor justify color pie bleeding (like Vapor Snag or Hornet Sting), but that doesn't mean it isn't a bleed.

To me, Extort is such an egregious abuse of the pie that the flavor doesn't rescue it. YMMV.

I'm not sure the idea of the color pie existed when Prodigal Sorcerer was printed, so it's hard to call it a bleed.


Don't they still have a basic rulebook that explains the basic rules in a way that wouldn't put legal scholars to sleep? Or did they do away with that?

It does it all the time in the form of Lifelink creatures. Now, I agree that it is extremely rare for it not to be expressed in combat, but the function is still the same: opponent's life goes down, my life goes up an equal amount.


That's not true, or at least it is only partly true. At certain points, they had to decide where to put mechanics that made sense and sometimes putting a mechanic in colour A or colour B is just a choice, but the colour pie is all about flavour and making sure the mechanics fit that flavour. The fact that white gets bleeding effects in the form of lifelink creatures is a mechanical choice, not a flavour choice.


I find it interesting that two of these cards are from New Phyrexia, as you mention. Would we be surprised by more mono-white cards like them when the Phyrexians return?

As for the colour pie complaints about New Phyrexia and colour pie violations, I think most of them revolve around cards that fall within a certain colour's section of the pie but that can be played with only generic mana or are free, like Dismember, Mental Misstep or Phyrexian Metamorph.


They still had a colour pie back then, it wasn't as firm as it is now (with Mark Rosewater trying to enforce it as best he can), and they also let blue get away with more bleeding than other colours because the mechanical bleeds were framed as the colour doing something "clever". But it was still around.

I don't think the /tinfoil hat is required, I'm pretty sure Maro admitted that.

You are getting too focused on exact wording. This card is extremely functionally similar to Seeker of the Way. Channel Harm and Kor Chant also create a very thematically similar effect.

You could also definitely make a creature like:

Righteous D-Bag 2WW
Creature - Human Soldier
Lifelink
Whenever a Soldier you control becomes blocked, Righteous D-Bag deals 1 damage to the defending player.
3/2

Extort would look a little odd as a mono-white ability without the context of Orzhov, but it's not very different than some things you wouldn't bat an eye at.

One turns every noncreature spell into a Mortal Ardor, the other turns every spell into a radiated Last Caress (sans cantrip). These are incredibly different effects.


There is a world of difference between punishing the opponent for something they've done (which white does all the time) vs punishing them for something you've done (which white rarely does).

Even your example is punishing the opponent for their actions. Change it to an attack trigger instead of a blocking one and it is clearly no longer a monowhite card.

But that's exactly it. The 'drain' bleeds into white are there because the flavor supports it -- the Orzhov guild and the Phyrexian influence support that bleed.

And in the case of Extort, it's the Orzhov influence.

In a vacuum, yeah, Extort is a black ability. But Extort wasn't printed in a vacuum.

You say that, but is it really true if both spells are stapled to a 2/2? If you just read the text, Ranger's Guile and Turn Aside do entirely different things. But how different are they really?

White can turn opposing resources into life with cards like Divine Offering. One of the things it can obviously make an "offering" with is damage, as demonstrated by lifelink. It is really more a development decision than anything else that White shouldn't have reach, so it rarely gets pure life drain. Flavor definitely allows white to have that effect. In this block, you could even have a card like:

Crazy Angel Murder Time 5WW
Sorcery
Destroy all non-Angel creatures.
Each player loses life equal to number of creatures he or she controls that were destroyed this way, then gains life equal to the number of Angels he or she controls.

Yes. Combat dependence is a huge difference. In the modern pie you'd never see an instant that was just "1W destroy target creature." You could easily see "1W destroy target attacking or blocking creature."

Those two are very similar, much closer together than combat trick and burn spell.

Turning damage/loss of life into life gain is definitely within white's wheelhouse. It is the causing the life loss outside of the combat step that is completely strange for white. Lightning Helix is not a monowhite card, but Shining Shoal is.

I don't think you have any evidence to support the first half of that. As for the example card, you are once again getting into the punisher aspect of white. You chose not to align with the angels? You're going to pay for that. Extort is problematic because it is non-punisher loss of life in a color that has done that exactly once (and as part of a cycle at that).

Right, which makes Extort a crappy mechanic for exemplifying their guild. It sets them up as Bw rather than B/W. It's easily the worst fitting mechanic in RTR block.

Declaration in Stone was literally just printed. It may not be an instant but it's still 1W Exile target creature with zero dependencies. It's not an instant due to power level reasons, not due to any supposed color pie obligations. Unexpectedly absent is barely three years old and is an instant for WW that will remove anything with zero dependencies.

You won't see 2 CMC single color requirement instant speed removal without restrictions because that's OP by modern power levels. It has nothing to do with the color pie.

Extort is thematically BW. There are plenty of W cards that care about or even cause loss of life. White Clerics regularly cause loss of life whether mono white or BW. Not just those on Ravnica or Phyrexians. Stern Judge is in Torment and flat out drains players for playing black. Shahrazad drains life. Scholar of Athreos takes the effect to Theros. Draining in white isn't just a Ravnica or a Phyrexia color pie "break". It's on at least five different planes. It certainly shows up more in black but it's definitely solidly in BW which can be said of most of the guild effects. Cypher, for example, is almost entirely blue. Black can't interact with exile in any way. Black can't cast things for free at all. Black isn't exactly drowning in instant speed spells. Blue doesn't care about +1 counters with the exception of simic creations. Simic is still incredibly thematic even if it breaks the color pie.

Hang on a second, I distinctly recall Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring and similar cards providing white with the ability to get rid of creatures outside of combat.


But that decision, the decision to not to give white life loss outside of combat is not because that is outside of flavour for white or outside of white's slice of the colour pie, it is a design / development decision. This is the same reason why white gets more creatures than green and why the make a general split in who gets small fliers vs. mid-sized fliers vs. large fliers between blue and white.


I think Cipher might be the worst of them given how connected it is to creatures in a colour pair that is probably the worst at creatures. But aside from that, gaining life by making your opponent lose life is within the BW colour pair and it would be a worse fit in every other colour pair with Black.